I heard a comparison to the NHL rule about hitting player's wrists. The problem they had was that they were getting a lot of broken wrists because of players striking other player's wrists as a part of a defensive move. The NHL made a rule to make it illegal. There was and uproar and the first 2 weeks of the season there was chaos. Since then they have had no broken wrists and everything seems to be moving forward.

_________________To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.- Henri Poincaré

These new rules just reinforces my idea of wanting to draft for offense over defense. The days of having great defenses are over. The NFL wants high scoring games, a lot of points, they want lead changes, they want games decided in the last two minutes.

That is why you keep adding pieces to your offense, the NFL is all about who scores last and how many points can you score to keep up with the best teams.

This new rule though doesn't it go against the laws of nature? How are you supposed to tackle somebody without the head being lowered in some way? Same with a RB running with the ball. One thing for sure though, you will see more defensive players ejected and thus advantage to the offense.

These new rules just reinforces my idea of wanting to draft for offense over defense. The days of having great defenses are over. The NFL wants high scoring games, a lot of points, they want lead changes, they want games decided in the last two minutes.

That is why you keep adding pieces to your offense, the NFL is all about who scores last and how many points can you score to keep up with the best teams.

This new rule though doesn't it go against the laws of nature? How are you supposed to tackle somebody without the head being lowered in some way? Same with a RB running with the ball. One thing for sure though, you will see more defensive players ejected and thus advantage to the offense.

Keep in mind the rule is worded as (paraphrasing) “make it illegal to intentionally target another player’s helmet using your own helmet”.

So it’s essentially the NFL’s spin on college’s targeting rule.

Tackling a guy and having your helmet hit his chest still isn’t a penalty. Hell, tackling a guy having your helmet hit his helmet should theoretically be legal.

This is more for when a player lowers his helmet with the intent of targeting another player’s helmet.

Now that’s the theory.

The realistic side of this is that the NFL will likely tell the refs that this is a “point of emphasis” and it’ll get called in a bunch of situations where it shouldn’t, much like the defenseless receiver rules did when they were first put into place.

Even still, though, I don’t think 99% of tackles will be affected by this. I think it’ll be more of an extension of the NFL’s wish to be able to flag any hits to the head that look particularly violent.

This isn't half the issue you bedwetters think it is. It's about using the helmet, spearing, in the game.

Slobber is correct. The spirit of the rule is to not intentionally use your helmet, the crown of your head to be the initial point of contact. To launch your helmet as a weapon. It goes for both offensive and defensive players. Been a rule in Canadian amateur football for years, probably US amateur as well(not sure). It gets called once every 5 games that I am involved with.

Frankly the Shazier injury "could" be seen as this type of infraction and you see what could happen.

A running back running between the tackles with his head down is not trying to initiate contact, hence no problem.

“I just can’t wait until the referees come into training camp like they do every year, and they show us the videos of what to do and not do in the rule changes,” DeCastro said. “I just can’t wait to see it because I have no idea what they’re talking about. It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“You’re taught from a young age, the low man wins,” DeCastro said. “Get your head lower than theirs. It’s like the nature of the game. You might as well take the ball away while you’re at it.”

“I’m really happy if that means they cannot bull rush, leading with the head,” he said. “That takes away one pass rush move. But I’m with Dave. What I don’t want is an ambiguous rule. They’re not going to call it on a bull rush but they are on a [guard] pull, if Dave hits a linebacker with the head because he’s trying to get lower? I don’t know how you can call it without making the game like flag football.”

Might as well put the flags on and get it over with already. I think this rule maybe implemented for a short time and largely ignored as the season progresses. I think it's a huge mistake and likely will cost the NFL more casual fans than they believe if they make the rule 'permanent'. I think this pre-season and regular season will be the experiment for this rule. I agree with DeCastro/Villanueva it's doomed to fail and stupid. Another dumb idea that guys have to be thinking about while playing as fast as they can. I believe that makes more risk of injury. We'll see.

There was a really good interview with Decastro and Villanueva on the fan about this subject. They said the rule is unenforceable and if they intend to enforce it then contact football is over. They talked about several scenarios. One would be on a Decastro pull block. If he’s pulling and going to clear out a LB, he has to get low. Low man wins. Can’t get low without lowering his head. They then talked about D line stunts and said if they can’t get low on a pull block, the league better not allow a pass rusher on a T E stunt to come through and lower their head to gain leverage as they do now. They also said the league sent out a video showing things no longer allowed. One was Brady doing a qb sneak and lowering his head. Same goes for a RB going into the hole. Somebody even went back and watched the first half of the Steelers Bengals game from last year. They found 40 potential penalties of this type in the first half, 29 were certain penalties and the rest were judgement calls.

Like I said, the rule is either totally unenforceable, going to completely take contact out of football, or be some mismanaged subjective mess that fucks up games and ruins the viewing experience. I’d bet number three.

My guess is the rule will used very sparingly, mostly in wide open space situations. They are all about sounding like they are "taking the head out of the game" just to cover their ass. Shazier's injury really help the situation much.